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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64059	A disquisition touching the sibylls and the sibylline writings in which their number, antiquity, and by what spirit they were inspired, are succinctly discussed, the objections made by Opsopæus, Isaac Casaubon, David Blondel, and others, are examined, as also the authority of those writings asserted : which may serve as an appendix to the foregoing learned discourse touching the truth and certainty of Christian religion.	Twysden, John, 1607-1688.; Yelverton, Henry, Sir, 1566-1629. Short discourse of the truth & reasonableness of the religion delivered by Jesus Christ.	1662 (1662)	Wing T3546_PART; ESTC R31870_PART	53,956	102

never so unjust We will now examine what in this Allegation is Argumentative on David Blundels part His design is to shew these eight Books of the Sibylline Writings to be embroyled fancies rapsodies proceeding from hypochondriaques full of faults and written 137. years after Christ To do this he tells you Clemens Alexandrinus urges That St Paul remitts the Gentiles to the Books of one of the Sibylls to prove the unity of the Godhead and other things to come but there is no such thing extant in St Pauls Epistles that we have therefore those Books are spurious false and I know not what else Were he able to prove that St Paul never said or wrote any other thing than what we have in those sew Epistles of his and that little that is related of him in the Acts nothing more would follow than that Clemens misalledged him nothing at all to the overthrow of the Books which we know were in the world both in Tully's and Virgil's time and therefore could not be unknown to St Paul being sometime in the Court of Nero and bred up unto much learning We know he did upon the like occasion remember them of the Poems of Aratus and Epimenides and why not of the Sibylls We have reason enough to believe Clemens might have some pieces of St Paul which are unknown unto us the rather since we see new things are dayly discovered witness the first Epistle of Clemens Romanus the genuineness of which few doubt yet not brought to light till our days and why the like may not be supposed of St Paul I see not This is clear he had a good esteem of those Writings and that in his judgment St Paul might have made use of their authority in that point Oh but here is a great deal of clearness in these Oracles more than in the Scriptures therefore St Paul could not be the Author of this Allegation Touching the clearness of these Writings in general I have spoke at large in the fourth Chapter as to their plainness for the proving the Unity of the Godhead certainly nothing in the world can be more clear than the Scripture in many places so that D. Blundel as to this particular hath not made his reply good against Clemens his Authority in any part I wonder he did not as much find fault with his quotation of the Sermon of St Peter a little before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Lib. 6. Stromat p. 635. where he tells you of the Unity Incomprehensibleness Invisibility of his filling all things and standing need of nothing of his making all things by the power of his Word that is his Son and many more undoubted truths but not delivered at least not all of them in those words by St Peter in any thing of his now extant I cannot doubt but could that have been useful he would have heaped it up also amongst Clemens his mistakes with which he fills up his next Chapter and were they all true would be very little to his purpose After this from the beginning of the eleventh Chapter to the end of the fifteenth he spends his whole time and as much paper as I have alloted my self to this whole discourse in shewing you the more important mistakes in the Emperour Constantine in his eleventh Chapter then his mistakes of less importance in the fourteenth the discovery and clearing the opinion of Cicero in the twelfth and of Virgil in the thirteenth Chapter that Virgil did not disguise his opinion is the subject of his fifteenth Chapter Whereas after all this labour and pains he wholy mistakes both the design and drift not only of the Emperor but of all other the Christians that have made use of the Sibylline Writings whose aim was not to concern themselves what was the opinion either of Tully touching them or what Virgil meant in his fourth Eclogue but whether the words of one do not clearly import that there were Sibylls and that in their Writings were Acrostiques and that the words of the other import that which is not applicable to any but our Saviour Now that this is made good in every particular is so clear that the very recitation of the words are of themselves able to confute any man The words of Tully in his second Book of Divination are these Speaking of the Sibylls The Poem it self evidently shews Non esse autem illud carmen furentis cum ipsum Poêma declarat est enim magis artis dilig ●tiae quam iucitationis motus tum vero ea quae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dicitur cum deinc●ps exprimis versus literis aliquid connectitur ut in quibusdam Ennianis quae Ennius fecit Cicer. de Divinat lib 2. that the Verses are not a mad bodies for it savours more of Art and diligence than of sudden motion or incitation especially that which is called an Acrostich in which from the first letters of every verse downward something is framed or knit together as it is in some of those which Ennius hath made 'T is clear enough from these words that there were Acrosticks and such as Ennius made but of what sort those were we cannot know since of him we have nothing left that I know of but certain fragments gathered together out of all Authors by Robert Stephen and put out by Henry his brother But if we may guess at them by those in the Arguments of most if not all the Comoedies of Plautus who was near Helvic Chron. act ann mun 3712. if not of his time for between the birth of Ennius and death of Plautus are but 60. years or thereabout and both before Tully we shall find them such as those quoted out of the eighth Book of the Sibylline Oracles and repeated by Constantine so that I look upon that in D. Blundel pag. 55. as a fancy who would have Acrosticks so made that the number of the letters in the first Verse should contain the number of the verses in the whole Poem and that the second of the first should be the first letter of the second verse and so consecutively of which sort he gives one only verse as an example 705 years after Christ and perhaps the only one ever made of that sort Lil. Giral de Poet. Hist Dial. 2. p. 11. Lillius Giraldus tells you of Acrosticks and Parasticks but of none of this sort so that we have little reason to believe those in the Sibylline Oracles were other than what we have Dionysius Halicarnassaeus tells you the true Sibylline Writings were discovered by the Acrosticks enough to prove there were such Those of Virgil are in his fourth Eclogue too long to transcribe and such that Constantine in his Oration Ad Sanctorum Caetum spends his nineteenth and twentieth Chapters to shew they could not be understood of any other but our Saviour and shews there that those as well Acrosticks as other Writings of the Sibylls had been seen both by Cicero

Enthusiasme be natural and to that purpose the authority of Aristotle is produced who discoursing of the several passions arising from drink love and the like or from some melancholy heat tells you the story of one Maracus of Siracuse a Poet who never made so good verses as when he was made and immediately before hath these words Many because that heat is near the seat of the mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Arist. Probl. 30. Quest 1. are taken with sundry frantick and Enthusiastick diseases from whence they all become Sibylls Bakides or inspired whereas they become not so by any disease but a natural temperament From which words we may observe two things First That he doth not in this place point at any Sibyll in particular of which many had been before his time but takes Sibylls there for persons any way inspired as the Bakides and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 joyned with them were supposed to be And in the next place That he must not to contradict himself take disease in a different sence in the same place for in the beginning of the sentence he tells you They are taken with many frantick or Enthusiastick diseases and soon after saith They become so not from any disease but a natural crasis or temperaments in the last place therefore he must take disease in that stricter notion for such an affection as shakes and weakens the whole frame of the body in the first for such a distemper as drunkenness love poetical rapture and the like such as he calls natural Enthusiasme which will either be its own cure or vanish away with time the constitution being sound though the action be altered but however it will from these words of Aristotle follow that in his sence much of this kind of illumination proceeded from an exaltation of the mind by some ecstatick operation of the soul and not from any possession or inspiration of it by either good or evil spirits And undoubtedly great examples in all ages may be produced out of the Observations of several Physitians to this purpose some where of have been meer cheats to gain credit to such as should cure or exorcise them others true or natural where through some melancholy heat or strong imagination or lastly through custom and use See Montagnes Essays Strange effects from the force of imagination in his Chapter upon that subject Fienus de viribus imaginationis the persons affected have brought upon themselves such a habit of body that their fancy prevailing over their judgment and understanding they have really believed themselves possessed with a spirit of Prophesie and enlightning from God whereas in truth there was no such thing I my self have known two examples in Persons both of this Nation of good Rank and Quality the one a man whom I have often seen and sometimes heard discourse but was then too young my self to converse with him but am well assured he was otherwise a very sober person but in that particular of explaining difficult prophesies did think himself strangely indowed insomuch that his confidence so far misled him that he could no way be driven out of that opinion That the eleventh Chapter of the second Apocryphal Book of Esdras denoted King James who was the Lion of the North who plucked at the feathers of the Eagle which he conceived to be the Emperour Nay his confidence in this fancy was so great that after the death of the King he believed he should rise again out of his grave to make good his conjecture The other was a Lady of Noble Rank who pretended much to this gift of Prophesie and having unhappily foretold the death of a great person which by chance fell out true she was mightily puft up with it and followed by some of the giddy multitude she undertook to denounce the end of the world writ upon the prophecy of Daniel very idly and at last lived to see her self deceived in all her vain extravagancies These two might certainly be reckoned amongst the Enthusiasts of Aristotle who laboured under some light disorder of the brain which disturbed their judgment as to that particular though in other matters they were sober enough and under the same notion must I look upon the false Prophets Dreamers and Quakers whereof this Age hath been very fertile who pretend themselves endued with an extraordinary measure of the Spirit of God first dream dreams then see visions then expound them after their own imaginations and would obtrude these upon the ignorant multitude as Revelations of God which are indeed no other than the effects of a disturbed brain what they foretel rarely coming in any measure to pass and themselves never able to confirm their mission by any miracle whatsoever to induce men to believe them Prophets Some of them are not unlike the Derevises or Torlaces in Turky who by frequent using their bodies to turn round can at their pleasure fall into extasies in which they pretend to receive messages from God and deceive those that give credit to them though to speak truth the sad consequences that have followed from the doctrine of some of these pretenders to new Lights may give us good cause to believe them to have been led away into these extravagancies by the spirit of errour and delusion and not wholly by a natural disturbance of the brain Unless as we have great reason to suspect that many of them have been carried on by interest and design by such pretences to deceive others thereby to compass their wicked designs of which we have seen too sad effects From this and much more which might be materially added to this purpose it will be evinced that Aristotle had much of truth and reason in what he said but because some were either cheats or Hypochondriaque that therefore all were and among them the Sibylls as D. Blundel would infer I can no way be induced to believe nor doth he produce any reason that they were so whereas the very great time between the predictions and the fulfilling of them sufficiently evince that they came from a higher cause then a melancholick heat In which I have ever observed that between the Prophesie and the time allotted for the adimpletion of it seldom interceded more then a score of years sometimes not so many moneths Beside we find that as well the Sibylline Predictions as all other Oracles ceased at or soon after the preaching of our Saviour whereas melancholick distempers continue still which to me seems a strong argument that they were different in their causes Neither ought the authority of Aristotle too much to sway us in this thing I allow him to be one of the greatest Masters of reason that ever was but withal must remember that being contemporary with Plato and sometime his Scholar but resolving to set up a new Philosophy different from that of his Master would not comply with him in that particular in which he deemed him faulty For it

reply to what had been urged by them The first he takes into consideration is Clemens Alenandrinus a person he knew of variety of Learning insomuch that some part of his Books were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the variety of the subjects they handled and of great antiquity in the Church having flourished and written as 't is thought within 160 years Heloic Chronol pa. 91. or thereabout after the death of our blessed Saviour and finding that he had in sundry places mentioned the Sibylls and their Books particularly in his first Book Strom. Clem. Alexand. Strom. lib. 1. p. 323 B. Edit Paris 1629. p. 304. in which he mentions many of them and among others Phemonoe whom he affirms to have lived twenty seven years before Orpheus who was one of the Captains in the expedition of the Argonauts against Jason for the golden Fleece about the year from the Creation according to D. Simpson 2743. according to Helvicus not so much who by the way tells you Simpson in an that what before was read 27 ought to be 107 as the same Author had before noted in the same Book who had also before mentioned another ancienter then this Phemonoe another later namely Sibylla Erythre● with others whereas D. Blundel contends there was but one and the same person Author of all the Sibylline Books now extant much after Christ Nay farther that he was not ignorant that Pausanias mentions the daughter of Jupiter and Lamia long before the building of Delphos in which place Phemonoe was perhaps one of the first that gave out Oracles though long after the first Sibyll And had farther observed that many verses now extant in the Books we have and other passages therein were mentioned in Heathen as well as Christian Authors That Constantine who was not only a Christian and so by his profession bound to speak truth but an Emperour and so in a capacity by his power to examine all Records and other means by which the truth might be discovered had not only asserted their authority but made it evident that both Virgil and Tully had seen and made use of some passages now in those Books we have He had great reason to believe that some of his Readers would lay more weight upon the judgment of so many grave Writers then to be led away by his bare suspition The passage he first lays hold on is in Clemens Alexandrinus in his sixth Book in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib. 6. Strom. p. 636. Over and above the preaching of S. Peter Paul the Apostle saith Take unto your selves the Graecian Writers read Sibylla how she manifestly declares one God and the things that are to come That which he replies to this place is very fit to be set down in his own words though they are somewhat long They shall give me pardon by their leave if I say they accumulate one ill upon another Mais il me pardonneront s'il leur plaist si je dis que ils accumulent mal sur mal car s'il ya de la faute a souscrire comme S. Justin a une faussete que l'on n'a peu recognoistre combien doit estre odicux le crime de ce faux tesmoign qui pour tromper Clement Alexandrin les autres Chrestiens a voulu soustenir la supposition des escrits Sibyllins par une pire imposture feindre que S Paul luy mesme leur avoit concilié de l'authorité par sa recommendation Si les bonnes ames ont de la pe ne a souffrir que l'on donne en leur presence les eloges de la pudicite a de louues de bordel qui d'entre les vrais Chrestiens pourra supporter que l'on egale aux prophetes de dieu des hypocondriaques a leurs oracles coelestes des resveries embarassées que l'inventeur d'une si indigne fourbe ose pour la maintenir produtre l'Apostre comme complice de son audace sacrilege On veut n●ant moins que de ce vaisseau d'election soient sorties les paroles rapportées par Clement pour ce que rien de tel ne se trouve en ses epistres on se figure qu'il les a prononcees en ses sermons populairs come s'il avoit este possible a celuy qui a sacrific sa vie par un glorieux martyre l'an 65 de nostre Seigaeur de donner son approbation a une piece pleine de fautes forge de puis l'an 137 c. Blond des Sibylles cap. 5. p. 15. 16. for if it were a fault to give consent with S. Justin to an untruth which he could not know how odious ought the fault to be of this false witness who to the end he might deceive Clemens Alexandrinus and the rest of the Christians hath shew'd himself willing to maintain the supposition of the Sibylline Writings by a worse imposture feigns that S. Paul himself had given them authority by his recommendation If those good souls would be unwilling that one in their presence should commend for chastity the persons hired in unclean houses what true Christian could endure to hear equalled to the Prophets of God and their Prophesies the embroiled fancies of Hypochondriacks and that the Inventor of this so unworthy cheat should dare for the maintenance of it to produce the Apostle as a Partner of his sacrilegious boldness Notwithstanding all this there are that would have these words quoted by Clemens to have proceeded out of the mouth of this Vessel of Election and because no such thing is found in his Epistles they feign to themselves that he spake them in his Sermons to the people as if it were possible for him who sacrificed his life by so glorious a Martyrdome 65 years after our Saviour could give approbation to a piece full of faults and forged 137 years after I ask first who was this false witness whose crime was so odious who was the inventor of that so unworthy a cheat and that durst make St Paul his partner in so sacrilegious a boldnes and that deceived Clemens and the rest of the Christians I am sure there is nothing extant in their Writings that tells you that St Paul made use of them and I think he did not believe any body stood at Clemens his elbow to engage him to father that upon St Paul which he would not own so that it must necessarily follow that Clemens Alexandrinus himself must be the person guilty of this cheat this sacrilegious boldnes to deceive both himself and other Christians Certainly D. Blundel had too much worth to intend any such calumny to this Writer or to affix so ill language of him and I observe it only to let you see how far that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the immoderate drawing of all things to the contrary part to serve their ends may mislead wise men after they have espoused the defence of any cause though